Is academic freedom in crisis?
Bridget Balch | 29 November 2023 | Association of American Medical Colleges
In November 2022, a group of Harvard University faculty members met over dinner to discuss the state of free speech and academic freedom at their institution. They concluded that these freedoms had become embattled and agreed to create a new faculty-led coalition to advocate for academic freedom on campus. Subsequently, in March of 2023, more than 50 Harvard faculty members launched the Council on Academic Freedom.
In an op-ed published by the Boston Globe in April, two of the council’s members, Steven Pinker, a psychology professor, and Bertha Madras, MD, a psychobiology professor at the medical school, wrote that Harvard was at the center of a societal debate over the state of academic freedom in the United States. They referenced viral instances of professors being mobbed, heckled, and even assaulted for espousing divergent views, and cited statistics from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) of 114 instances of professors being censored and 156 firings related to expression of viewpoints from 2014 to 2022. The op-ed also pointed to efforts by state legislators, particularly in Florida, to limit which issues can be taught at public universities.